Fingerprint error rate on close non‐matches

The accuracy of fingerprint identifications is critically important to the administration of criminal justice. Accuracy is challenging when two prints from different sources have many common features and few dissimilar features. Such print pairs, known as close non‐matches (CNMs), are increasingly likely to arise as ever‐growing databases are searched with greater frequency. In this study, 125 fingerprint agencies completed a mandatory proficiency test that included two pairs of CNMs. The false‐positive error rates on the two CNMs were 15.9% (17 out of 107, 95% C.I.: 9.5%, 24.2%) and 28.1% (27 out of 96, 95% C.I.: 19.4%, 38.2%), respectively. These CNM error rates are (a) inconsistent with the popular notion that fingerprint evidence is nearly infallible, and (b) larger than error rates reported in leading fingerprint studies. We conclude that, when the risk of CNMs is high, the probative value of a reported fingerprint identification may be severely diminished due to an elevated false‐positive error risk. We call for additional CNM research, including a replication and expansion of the present study using a representative selection of CNMs from database searches.     

Global uncertainty,economic governance institutions and foreign direct investment inflow in Africa

Economic Change and Restructuring - Based on the fact that Africa has not fared well in attracting foreign direct investments in the last decade compared to other regions of the world, especially...     

理解中美关系的裂痕

中美关系是当下亚太地区正在发生的政治和战略变化的决定性因素,中美之间的竞争并不奇怪,它是国际关系的一种形式,关键是中美的利益冲突是对抗性的还是非对抗性的。这一问题在中美两国的官员、思想者、媒体中都引发了激烈的争论。部分美国高级官员认为中国的一些行为是修正主义的,但其实它们是保护主义的。从东亚总体来看,东北亚存在修正主义国家,东南亚则没有。因此,南海发生重大危机的可能性不大,而东北亚将给东亚带来很大的不确定性。     

Ingredients of institutional reputations and citizen engagement with regulators

The purpose of this study is to examine the link between the reputational components of efficacy and moral reliability of institutions, and citizens' compliance with institutional recommendations. Research on bureaucratic reputations highlights the significance of positive political reputations based on credibility and legitimacy, but the impact of these components is not systematically isolated and studied. We draw insights from political psychology to move beyond a positive‐negative valence‐based approach of reputation, and highlight the different effect of efficacy and moral reliability components of reputation on citizens' cooperation, engagement in water saving activities, and levels of complaints. We use the Cypriot Water Authority as a case study and inquire how its institutional reputation influences Cypriot citizens' behavior regarding water use. Our data was collected via a representative national survey administered to a random sample of 800 Cypriots in the spring of 2009 and show that favorable perceptions of particular components of institutional reputation shape the levels of satisfaction with specific organizational outputs.     

Beyond the Acronyms: Sport Diplomacy and the Classification of the International Olympic Committee

ABSTRACT

Diplomacy often finds itself reduced to actions centred on states. However, after the Cold War, international relations and diplomacy have expanded with different actors growing into significant roles, particularly in the increase of diplomatic relations in the context of sport. The classification and significance of other actors remains under-researched in relation to sport, with literature focusing more on the growth of new and varying practices of diplomacy. This analysis contends that there is a need to interrogate fundamental components of modern diplomacy—with the actor being the focus—more specifically the classification of sports organisations in diplomacy. It is relevant as a more accurate understanding of sports organisations will contribute to how diplomatic studies can analyse and evaluate modern diplomacy within the context of sport. The International Olympic Committee is the actor used to illustrate how problematic classifications currently in the academic literature translate into weak and reduced analysis and evaluation of its role and significance in diplomacy. As counterpoint, this analysis proposes an analytical framework of socio-legal theory that harnesses legal regulation as a benchmark to classify an actor’s capacity within a society. In consequence, the IOC is as an active and significant contributor to the ever expanding and complex diplomatic environment and wider society.     

“Empowered patient” or “doctor knows best”? Political economy analysis and ownership

Efforts to incorporate “political thinking” into policy-making and practice in OECD-DAC development agencies have increasingly focused on the use of “political economy analysis” (PEA) frameworks and tools. While recognising the fundamental value of promoting politically informed programming, this article nevertheless highlights how contemporary efforts to this end have largely ignored another central development agenda: the ownership paradigm. Emphasising the highly donor-centric nature of PEA design and methodology, we explore critiques and justifications of this state of affairs, ultimately arguing that donors would benefit from embracing a more flexible and context-specific understanding of ownership.     

Is It the What or the How? The Roles of High‐Policing Tactics and Procedural Justice in Predicting Perceptions of Hostile Treatment: The Case of Security Checks at Ben‐Gurion Airport,Israel

What affects perceptions of hostile treatment by police, characterized by feelings such as humiliation and intimidation? Is it what the police do to the citizen, or is it about how they do it? The important effects of procedural justice are well documented in the policing literature. Yet, it is not clear how high‐policing tactics, coupled with procedural justice, affect one's sense of hostile treatment: is it the case that what the police do does not matter as long as they follow the principles of procedural justice, or do some invasive or unpleasant tactics produce negative emotions regardless of the amount of procedural justice displayed by the officer? In the present study we examine this question in the context of security checks at Ben‐Gurion Airport, Israel. Using a survey of 1,970 passengers, we find that the behavioral elements of procedural justice are an important antidote, mitigating the negative effects of four “extra” screening measures on the perceived hostility of the checks. At the same time, two security measures retain an independent and significant effect. We discuss the implications of our findings and hypothesize about the characteristics of policing practices that are less sensitive to procedural justice.     

Justifications for Non-Consensual Medical Intervention: From Infectious Disease Control to Criminal Rehabilitation

A central tenet of medical ethics holds that it is permissible to perform a medical intervention on a competent individual only if that individual has given informed consent to the intervention. Yet it occasionally seems morally permissible to carry out non-consensual medical interventions on competent individuals for the purpose of infectious disease control (IDC). We describe two different moral frameworks that have been invoked in support of non-consensual IDC interventions and identify five desiderata that might be used to guide assessments of the moral permissibility of such interventions on either kind of fundamental justification. We then consider what these desiderata imply for the justifiability of carrying out non-consensual medical interventions that are designed to facilitate rehabilitation amongst serious criminal offenders. We argue that these desiderata suggest that a plausible case can be made in favor of such interventions.     

A New Look at New Labour

This article challenges the current orthodoxy, for instance put forward by Driver and Martell (1998), that New Labour represents a clearly defined break from the Labour Party's past. Drawing upon accounts of Labour's historical development, I argue that Labour in government has always been concerned with forging cross-class alliances, more often than not in the face of bitter internal opposition from the party's grass-roots membership. I conclude that the objectives of the Blair government are not dissimilar from those of the Attlee and Wilson administrations, and that where the means to achieve these ends differ – for example with regard to social policy – this is a rational response to the profound economic and social changes that have taken place since the 1970s.